Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege to stand before the House and speak to Bill C-22. I will try to keep my remarks as brief as possible so that as many speakers as possible can speak to this important piece of legislation.
Just in starting off, as the member for Rosedale said, Canadians are pleased to see that parliamentarians can take issues like this one and through co-operation come up with a solution and move it quickly through the House. Particularly in the area of foreign affairs they want to see that sort of diplomacy being demonstrated even in these premises, something we do not have a lot of, but certainly this is the opportunity for us to do that.
It is my pleasure to congratulate the minister on his co-operation and on his achievement in pushing the matter through and on to the international scene. All this started off in the last House with one of our members putting forward legislation.
I congratulate the NGOs, Jody Williams and all the others who appeared before committee and had so much to do with the legislation.
It serves us well as Canadians that our legislation, the legislation that we are now passing in the House, will be used as an example for some of the other 40-odd countries that have agreed to sign next week. It will hopefully provide motivation for other countries to come on side.
I have to admit that initially I was not very familiar with what mines were all about. I certainly did not realize the significance of them. We saw the map of Bosnia. We saw pink all over the map. We saw how the entire country was covered in mines. We saw people in some of the border towns, perhaps half of the population, who literally did not have an arm, a hand or a leg. That brought it home for all of us as to just how serious the problem was.
We found out that under the bark of trees there could be land mines, and that land mines were not something that were sticking out so that everybody could see but were hidden. They were in bricks with a little hair coming out that could trigger an explosion. They were underneath what appeared to be full coke tins sitting on a table with a plastic explosive underneath it. A young child could come along and grab that tin of coke and be maimed or killed. Then one realizes just how serious the problem was and how it was something that could not be accepted by anyone in the human race.
It was pretty easy for us to say we would co-operate on the issue and that we were proud Canadians to lead an initiative that would have an impact around the world.
There are areas of the legislation where the government has been given power within our country to encroach on some of our rights. However, in looking at it, most of us would agree that is an encroachment we can accept.
We have to be somewhat cautious in being too much of a boy scout when it comes to how we appear internationally. We have to be sure that we are not just talking, that we really mean what we saying and that we really are committed to helping countries de-mine their fields, their riverbeds, their roadways and so on.
It is often easy for us to pass legislation. I think back to when we talked about youth prostitution in foreign countries. I cannot imagine how we would ever enforce that kind of legislation. We feel good passing it and we agree with it but how would we enforce it?
We have talked about the Hague convention, something a subcommittee is working on, and kidnapped kids. All of us realize how emotional and difficult that is. It is easy to say we are against it but it is difficult to do something about it.
I should have mentioned at the start that I will be sharing my time with the member for Calgary East.